21Apr14

Abe's Yasukuni offering a slap in Obama's face

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday made a ritual offering to the
controversial Yasukuni Shrine in yet another provocative move detrimental to
regional stability.

With U.S. President Barack Obama set to arrive in Japan on Wednesday for a
three-day visit, Abe's donation is nothing short of a slap in the face of the
leader of Japan's closest ally.

Abe surely understands that. Less than four months ago, his visit to the shrine
not only infuriated China and South Korea, but prompted Washington to
express explicit disappointment and urge Tokyo to mend ties with its
neighbors.

Yet he and a handful of other senior Japanese politicians still stick to historical
denialism and continue to steer their country down a rightist path reminiscent
of militarism, which would inevitably further strain Tokyo's relations with
Beijing and Seoul.

With both Japan and South Korea being important U.S. allies and China a
global heavyweight with which the United States has committed itself to
building a new type of major-country relations, Abe's apparently incorrigible
trouble-making poses a real threat to U.S. interests.

The United States itself was a victim of the havoc fascist Japan wreaked
during World War II. So it is imperative that Washington join the international
community in condemning Abe's wrongdoing and preventing Japan from falling
down the abyss of self-destruction again.

More importantly, it needs to reconsider its Japan policy, which has for years
featured unprincipled support for an undisciplined ally at the cost of the overall
interests of both itself and the region.

That is unsustainable. During his upcoming visit, Obama should send a clear
message to Tokyo that the United States is no spoiler of repeated
troublemakers and that Japan must learn and behave.

[Source: By Xinhua writer Zhu Dongyang, Xinhua, Beijing, 21Apr14]

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